Worlds Without End: The Mission (Book 1) Read online

  “But, Dad, can’t we stay too?” said Ashley, obviously wanting to be involved.

  Kevin shot her a stern look.

  “Okay … okay, we’re going. C’mon, Adam.”

  Kevin turned and watched Ashley and Adam leave the room. He then sat in the chair next to Jake. Jake was in the same position and didn’t even acknowledge Kevin’s presence. Kevin shook his head and sighed. “Tough week, huh?”

  Jake still did not move or answer. This was going to be harder than Kevin had anticipated. “You know, Jake, I wish you would talk to me. It seems like eons since we’ve had a good heart-to-heart.”

  Jake lifted his head, sat straight up, and turned to face Kevin. His eyes were red from crying, but he still had a look of defiance on his face. “I’ve wanted to talk, but you’ve been so busy, you clearly never wanted to talk to me.”

  Kevin gave Jake a puzzled look and resisted the temptation to defend himself. “I know I have been busy. But whenever you came home on leave, you seemed as if you didn’t want to talk about anything.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Well then, why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Because every time I tried to bring something up, your cell phone would ring, or you would have some important meeting. I couldn’t talk to Ashley because she would just belittle me, and I couldn’t talk to Adam because he’s too young to understand.”

  “Well, I’m here now, and I think I know what it is you want me to understand.”

  “Do you?” Jake said as he stood up and took a few steps forward.

  “I do. The colonel showed me your discipline record. Before your mother’s d—”

  “Aunt!”

  “What?”

  Jake turned around to face Kevin. “Diane was my aunt, not my mother, and you’re my uncle, not my father!”

  The comment cut Kevin like a knife into his chest. He shook his head and continued. “Yes, I know Diane and I aren’t your biological parents, but we adopted you and raised you as one of our own. We love you like a son.”

  Jake turned around again as he tried to hide his tears. He wouldn’t look Kevin in the eye. “I know you love me like a son, but …”

  Kevin stood up, walked over to Jake, and placed his hands on his shoulders. “What is it, son?”

  “I … I …”

  Kevin turned Jake around. Jake resisted and walked away. Then he turned to face Kevin and finally let go. “For some reason, ever since Aunt Diane’s death, I’ve missed my real mom and dad terribly. I feel alone. I feel lost. I remember bits and pieces of my mom and a little more of my dad. It seems that’s all I have been thinking about this past year. Aunt Diane was my mother, and I loved her like my real mom. It seems like God is taking everything away from me. First my real mom and dad, Aunt Diane, and …”

  Jake stopped and looked at Kevin.

  “Me?” questioned Kevin, as he moved closer to Jake. “You’re afraid of losing me?”

  Jake looked down and buried his head into Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin wrapped his arms around Jake and squeezed. Jake began to sob. No more words needed to be said. Kevin now realized that Jake was acting out because he was terrified of losing his loved ones. Everyone Jake had loved had left him. No wonder he felt alone.

  Kevin and Jake stood in the waiting room, holding each other for a few moments. Kevin decided he needed to say what had been on his mind for the last year. “You know, Jake, you will see your parents and Aunt Diane again.”

  Jake looked up and backed away. “Oh, don’t feed me that crap again, Uncle Kevin. You know I haven’t prayed for years. I’ve even started drinking.”

  “I know. I … I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that I think you would be happier if you did, that’s all.”

  “Not after what God has done to me.”

  “And what has God done to you?” As soon as Kevin said it, he knew he shouldn’t have. He could tell Jake was becoming defensive again.

  Jake turned around again. “God has killed everyone I love. I hate Him!”

  Kevin shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to upset you. Let’s not talk about God righ—” Kevin’s cell phone, hidden in his suit pocket, rang. He pulled it out and was about to answer it.

  “See, there you go again, business over family.”

  Kevin stopped before he could answer the phone. “You’re right. Whoever it is can leave me a message.”

  The phone stopped ringing, and Kevin said, “We don’t have to talk about this now. What do you say, we go get something to eat, and all of us go to a good movie tonight? Let’s forget about our problems for a while.”

  Jake thought that was a good idea. He looked up and gave Kevin a modest smile. “That sounds good. I’ve talked about my problems enough, and I haven’t seen a movie in nearly a year.”

  Kevin put his right hand on Jake’s shoulder as the two strolled out of the doors. Kevin’s phone rang again. He ignored it.

  “You better get that,” Jake said. “Whoever it is must be desperate.”

  Kevin reached into his suit coat pocket and recognized the face on the other end as he placed the phone to his ear. “Mr. Konrad … What’s it been; over twenty years, hasn’t it? … What? Say that again. . … This isn’t some cruel joke is it? … You want me to bring Jake? … Go to Houston. … Okay, we’ll be there by tomorrow night. … Yeah, good to talk to you too.”

  Kevin put away his phone and looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had disappeared, revealing bright stars.

  “What was that all about?” asked Jake with a puzzled look on his face.

  Kevin turned slowly and looked at Jake. “That was Michael Konrad. He was the flight director of your father’s flight to Mars over twenty years ago. He said you and I need meet him in Houston tomorrow night.”

  “Houston? Why?”

  “He said they’ve got …” Kevin tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat.

  Jake put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “What did they get?”

  Kevin looked deep into Jake’s eyes and said, “NASA received a message from your dad.”

  **********

  Jake and Kevin sat at the conference table in Michael Konrad’s office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The office was large and spacious. Michael’s desk was at one end of the office, and the conference table, which could seat about twenty people, was snuggled neatly at the other end. The large bay window behind Michael’s desk provided a view of the entire complex.

  “This better not be some sick joke,” Jake said.

  “I don’t think they would bring us all the way here to Houston if it was,” said Kevin. But Kevin still wondered, Was it possible that Adrian was still alive? Perhaps, Adrian and his crew landed safely on Mars, but were unable to communicate with Earth and somehow survived.

  “If your dad did survive, it certainly would be a miracle. They would have had to have found a water supply somewhere and maintained enough energy to support their greenhouse.”

  Jake turned in his seat and looked at Kevin. “If he did survive, why didn’t we get a message earlier?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe their communications were down. We do know from the probes they sent to Mars after your dad’s disappearance that the space station was still there. But there wasn’t any evidence of the shuttle anywhere.”

  Jake hunched over and shook his head. “I don’t know what I would do if he’s still alive. I’ve already accepted the fact that my dad is gone, but if he were alive, I … I just don’t know.”

  Kevin reached over and placed his hand on Jake’s left shoulder. “If he is alive, maybe they’re planning some sort of rescue mission.”

  “But I thought after the disappearance, the government cut funding to NASA, and they were forced to just send satellites and probes into space. There hasn’t been an astronaut in space since the Mars I crew.”

  “Maybe Congress approved money for a new mission. Who knows?”

  Kevin and Ja
ke both looked up as they saw the door of the conference room open and two men walked in. The first man was dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a red tie. The man looked about the same age as Kevin, in his early sixties. He was bald and slightly overweight. Kevin immediately recognized him as Michael Konrad – Administrator for NASA.

  The second man, Kevin did not recognize. This man looked to be about the same age or a couple years older than Jake, possibly thirty or thirty-one. He had black hair and dark brown eyes. He was dressed in a polo shirt with the NASA emblem on the right breast along with khaki dress slacks. He also looked physically fit.

  Michael Konrad walked over to where Kevin sat. Kevin stood up. Michael extended his hand and shook Kevin’s. “Ah, Mr. Palmer, I’m sorry to keep you waiting. It’s so good to see you. What’s it been – over twenty years?”

  “Call me ‘Kevin.’ It’s good to see you too, and it’s been almost exactly twenty-three years.”

  Michael chuckled and gave Kevin a friendly hit on the shoulder. “Always the analytical one, weren’t you?” Michael then turned his attention to Jake. “And you must be Jake? Wow, you’ve grown quite a bit. I remember when you were just a kid running around this place. Remember?”

  Jake shook Michael’s hand and said, “I can’t say I can, Mr. Konrad. I don’t remember much about this place. I try not to.”

  “Please, call me ‘Mike.’ Yes, I understand. But we may have some good news for you today. Oh, but before we go on, I want you to meet Doctor Steven Hendricks.”

  Both Kevin and Jake extended their hands to shake Dr. Hendricks’ hand. Dr. Hendricks said, “Please call me ‘Skip.’”

  “Skip here is our lead astronomer and physicist and not a bad pilot himself. He’s also our resident priest,” said Mike, as he and Skip seated themselves at the conference table across from Kevin and Jake.

  Jake looked at Skip. “Priest?”

  Skip gave Jake a shy smile. “I’m not actually a priest. I went to the University of Notre Dame. At first, I thought that I wanted to become a priest, so I majored in theology. But then I found out that I liked the ladies too much.”

  Everyone laughed, except for Jake, who only gave Skip a small smile.

  Skip continued, “I then decided to go into Archeology with an emphasis in Hebrew studies.”

  Kevin questioned, “Hebrew studies?”

  “Yes, I loved the scriptures so much I decided that I wanted to focus on discovering the truth of the Bible. As a result, I can now speak, read, and write Hebrew and a little bit of Latin, as well as Egyptian hieroglyphs.”

  Jake whistled and said, “Wow, you’ve got quite the resume there. And to top it off, you’re a physicist too?”

  Skip, obviously a little embarrassed, laughed. “Yep, I decided that I didn’t like all of that digging, especially in the volatile Middle East, so I changed to my third passion, physics. As you can see, I stuck with it.”

  Mike turned to Skip. “Are you done bragging now?”

  Skip laughed and said, “Yeah, I think that about does it.”

  “Good,” Mike said, giving Skip a small smile. “Well, gentlemen, why don’t we get down to business? I’m sure my phone call shocked you last night, Kevin?”

  “To say the least. Are you serious about receiving a message from my brother?”

  “Yes, I am. About a year ago, NASA received a strange signal. The mes—”

  Jake held up his hand to cut Michael off. “You mean to tell us you had a message from my dad for over a year and you’re just telling us now?”

  Kevin gave Jake a stern look. “Jake, don’t interrupt Mike. Let him explain.”

  Jake turned and glared at his uncle. “I didn’t mean to. But if they had a message from my dad and your brother, I just thought that the first people that should know would be his family, not a year after they had received it.”

  Mike interjected, “We would have told you, but we had to be sure it was your dad and not some hoax. We’ve been analyzing the message for a year, trying to get rid of the choppy video that came with it and to decipher what Adrian is saying.”

  “What do you mean, ‘decipher’?” Kevin asked.

  “When we got the message, it came without any sound. It … well, why don’t we just show you the original message? Computer …”

  “Yes, Mr. Konrad,” replied the computer.

  “Retrieve video-file one, five, six, nine.”

  “This file is encrypted and classified. It requires your security authorization code.”

  Mike pulled his pocket computer from his suit pocket and punched in his authorization code.

  “Thank you, Mr. Konrad.”

  Kevin looked around the room for the computer. Out of the corner of his eye and to his right, two cabinet doors slowly opened and a computer screen about forty-two inches in diameter extended. Kevin let out a small gasp as he saw the frozen image of his brother’s face on the screen. Adrian had a gash on his forehead and was bleeding. The plasma screen of the landing craft, NightHawk, located behind Adrian’s image revealed a green field of grass and beyond that, a forest grove of trees.

  Kevin glanced at Jake. Jake stared at his father’s image like a robot. He just gazed at the screen with a cold, icy stare. “Where is he?” Kevin asked.

  Mike glanced at Kevin and then back at the screen. “That’s what we have been trying to determine. There’s no way that’s Mars. We’ve also digitally enhanced the video to make sure that person you see there is Adrian. And from what we have gathered, it is Adrian. We believe this message is authentic and not some sort of hoax.”

  Kevin turned and looked at Jake. Jake just continued to stare at the screen. He could tell that Jake was trying to keep his composure. “Are you okay, Jake?”

  Jake seemed to jump as if awakened from a long sleep. “What … oh yeah, sorry. It’s just that … he looks like I remember him.”

  “Computer play video-file one, five, six, nine,” said Mike.

  “Yes, Mr. Konrad,” answered the computer.

  Kevin watched in amazement as the video played. There was no sound, but Adrian was speaking. Every five seconds or so, the video was interrupted.

  When the playback finished, Jake asked, “Is that it? Do you guys know what he was saying?”

  Mike turned to look at Jake. “That was the original video, the way we received it from wherever your dad is. It arrived without any sound attached to it.”

  Kevin could tell that Jake was growing impatient. “What do you mean, it didn’t arrive with any sound?”

  Skip answered before Mike could reply. “That’s just it. The message arrived without sound, which leads me to believe, and the other physicists as well, that this message didn’t come from Mars. … It came from somewhere else.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jake asked, with impatience growing in his voice.

  Skip explained. “Well, Jake. … Can I call you ‘Jake’?”

  Jake nodded.

  “Well, we received this message just last year, and as you know, the speed of light travels about 186,000 miles per second.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, if your dad had sent this message from Mars, we would have received the video portion of the message between nine and twenty minutes, depending on the orbit of Mars and Earth. But, as you know, NASA didn’t get the message then. It came twenty-two years later.”

  Kevin interjected, “Wait a minute. So, what you are telling us is that my brother may still be alive, but on a different planet outside of our solar system?”

  “It’s possible, Mr. Palmer.”

  Kevin glanced at Jake. Jake shook his head and said, “I don’t believe it.”

  Skip leaned on the table and looked directly into Jake’s eyes. “C’mon, Jake. You’re intelligent. Think about it. It makes logical sense. You know we measure the distance to other stars and planets outside our solar system in light years.”

  Jake looked up and met Skip’s eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know. If a planet is on
e light year away and if I were to travel at the speed of light, I would get to that planet in one year.”

  “Bingo,” Skip said. “And we got this message twenty-two years after your dad’s disappearance, so that tells us that he may very well be on a planet that is twenty-two light years away from Earth.”

  Kevin was stunned. “Not possible. Einstein proved through his Theory of Relativity that nothing with a mass could travel faster than the speed of light.”

  Mike cut in. “True. Skip has a theory on that very issue that he can explain to you later, Kevin. But first, I want you two to watch the enhanced version of the video that we have put together. For nearly a year, our guys have been trying to piece together what Adrian is saying by reading his lips and entering their conclusions into the computer. What you are about to hear is the computer’s voice in sync with Adrian. We also edited out the video interference, so overall we got about a thirty-second video. Computer …”

  “Yes, Mr. Konrad.”

  “Play video-file one, five, six, nine dash two.”

  “Your security clearance code is required, Mr. Konrad.”

  Mike typed in his security clearance code again on his pocket computer.

  Kevin watched the screen as Adrian’s image from the original message reappeared. He just sat and listened to the computer in astonishment. Could this all be true?

  Adrian began to speak, but with the computer’s voice-over. “Houston, this is Mars I … I repea … oria’s dead. We have crash landed on anoth … anet … has atmosphere conducive to our … Cooper thinks that we may have gone through a w … we know this isn’t Earth … tell my brother and son that I lo …”

  Kevin couldn’t help the tears that swelled in his eyes. He knew the last phrase that Adrian was saying was that he loved him and Jake. Kevin turned to see Jake’s reaction. Jake had a tear rolling out of his left eye while he tried to sustain his tough-guy, pilot bravado.